The confusion of actuated with actuable matter was quite unavoidable in the Aristotelic theory of substantial generations. This theory assumes that not only the primitive elements of matter, but also every compound material substance, has a special substantial form giving the first being (simpliciter esse, or primum esse) to its matter. Hence, in the substantial generation, as understood by Aristotle, the matter must pass from one first being to another first being. Now, the authors who adopted such a theory well saw that the matter which had to acquire a first being, was to be considered as having no being at all; else it would not acquire its first being. On the other hand, the matter which passed from one first being to another was to be considered as having a first being; or else it would not exchange it for another. Hence the first matter, as ready to acquire a first being, was called a pure potency—that is, a potency of being; whilst, as ready to exchange its first being for another, it was called a real potency—that is, an actual reality. That a pure potency can be a real potency, or an actual reality, is an assumption which the peripatetic school never succeeded in proving, though it is the very foundation of the theory of strictly substantial generations as by them advocated.
Before we proceed further we have to mention S. Augustine’s notion of unformed matter, as one which contains a great deal more of truth than is commonly believed by the peripatetic writers. This great doctor admits that unformed matter was created, and existed for a time in its informity. “The earth,” says he, “was nothing but unformed matter; for it was invisible and uncompounded, … and out of this invisible and uncompounded matter, out of this informity, out of this almost mere nothingness, thou wast to make, O God! all the things which this changeable world contains.”[27] Some will ask: How could such a great man admit the existence of matter without a form? Did he not know that a potency without an act cannot exist? Or is it to be suspected that what he calls unformed matter was not altogether destitute of a form, but only of such a form as would make it visible as in the compound bodies?
S. Thomas believes that S. Augustine really excluded all forms from his unformed matter, and remarks that such an unformed matter could not possibly exist in such a state; for, if it existed, it was in act as a result of creation. For the term of creation is a being in act; and the act is a form.[28] Thus it is evident that to admit the existence of the matter without any form at all is a very gross blunder. But, for this very reason that the blunder is so great, we cannot believe that S. Augustine made himself guilty of it. We rather believe that he merely excluded from his unformed matter a visible shape, and what was afterward called “the form of corporeity” by which compound substances are constituted in their species and distinguished from one another. Let us hear him.
“There was a time,” says he, “when I used to call unformed, not that which I thought to be altogether destitute of a form, but that which I imagined to be ill-formed, and to have such an odd and ugly form as would be shocking to see. But what I thus imagined was unformed, not absolutely, but only in comparison with other things endowed with better forms; whilst reason and truth demanded that I should discard entirely all thought of any remaining form, if I wished to conceive matter as truly unformed. But this I could not do; for it was easier to surmise that a thing altogether deprived of form had no existence, than to admit anything intermediate between a formed being and nothing, which would be neither a formed being nor nothing, but an unformed being and almost a mere nothing. At last I dropped from my mind all those images of formed bodies, which my imagination was used to multiply and vary at random, and began to consider the bodies themselves, and their mutability on account of which such bodies cease to be what they were, and begin to be what they were not. And I began to conjecture that their passage from one form to another was made through something unformed, not through absolute nothing. But this I desired to know, not to surmise. Now, were I to say all that thou, O God! hadst taught me about this subject, who among my readers would strive to grasp my thought? But I shall not cease to praise thee in my heart for those very things which I cannot expound. For the mutability of changeable things is susceptible of all the forms by which such things can be changed. But what is such a mutability? Is it a soul? Is it a body? Is it the feature of a soul or of a body? Were it allowable, I would call it a nothing-something, and a being non-being. And yet it was already in some manner before it received these visible and compounded forms.”[29]
The more we examine this passage, the stronger becomes our conviction that the word “form” was used here by S. Augustine, not for the substantial form of Aristotle, but for shape or geometric form, and that “unformed matter” stands here for shapeless matter. For, when he says that “reason and truth demand that all thought of any remaining forms should be discarded,” of what remaining forms does he speak? Of those “odd and ugly forms” which he says would be shocking to see. But it is evident that no substantial form can be odd and ugly or shocking to see. Moreover, S. Augustine conceives his “unformed matter,” by dropping from his mind “all those images of formed bodies” by which his imagination had been previously haunted. Now, it is obvious that substantial forms are not an object of the imagination, nor can they be styled “images” of formed bodies. Lastly, the holy doctor explicitly says that the matter of the bodies “was already in some manner before it could receive these visible and compounded forms,” which shows that the forms which he excluded from the primitive matter are “the visible and compounded forms” of bodies—that is, such forms as result from material composition. And this is confirmed by those other words of the holy doctor, “The earth was nothing but unformed matter; for it was invisible and uncompounded”—that is, the informity of the earth consisted in the absence of material composition, and, therefore, of visible shape, not in the absence of primitive substantial forms.
It would be interesting to know why S. Augustine believed that his readers would not bear with him (quis legentium capere durabit?) if he were to say all that God had taught him about shapeless matter. Had God taught him the existence of simple and unextended elements? Was his shapeless matter that simple point, that invisible and uncompounded potency, on account of which all elements are liable to geometrical arrangement and to physical composition? The holy doctor does not tell us; but certainly, if there ever was shapeless matter, it could have no extension, for extension entails shape. It would, therefore, seem that S. Augustine’s shapeless matter could not but consist of simple and unextended elements; and if so, he had good reason to expect that his readers would scorn a notion so contrary to the popular bias; as we see that even in our own time, and in the teeth of scientific and philosophical evidence, the same notion cannot take hold of the popular mind.
If the unformed matter of S. Augustine is matter without shape and without extension, we can easily understand why he calls it pene nullam rem, viz., scarcely more than nothing.[30] Indeed, the potential term of a primitive element, a simple point in space, is scarcely more than nothing; for it has no bulk, and were it not for the act which gives it existence, it would be nothing at all, as it has nothing in itself and in its potential nature which deserves the name of “being”; but it borrows all its being from the substantial act, as we shall explain later on. It is, therefore, plain that the matter of a simple element, and of all simple elements, is hardly more than nothing, and that it might almost be described as a nothing-something, and a being non-being, as S. Augustine observes. But when the primitive matter began to cluster into bodies having bulk and composition, then this same matter acquired a visible form under definite dimensions, and thus one mass of matter became distinguishable from another, and by the arrangement of such distinct material things the order and beauty of the world were produced.
Thus S. Augustine did not admit the existence of matter deprived of a substantial form, but only the existence of matter without shape, and therefore without extension. And for this reason we have said that his doctrine contains more truth than is commonly believed by the peripatetic writers. His uncompounded matter can mean nothing else than simple elements; and since the components are the material cause of the compound, and must be presupposed to it, the simple elements of which all bodies consist are undoubtedly those material beings which God must have created before anything having shape and material composition could make its appearance in the world. Hence S. Augustine’s view of creation is, in this respect, perfectly consistent with sound philosophy no less than with revelation. His shapeless matter must be ranked, we think, with the first matter of Suarez above mentioned, under the name of primitive material substance.
As to the first matter of S. Thomas and of the other followers of Aristotle, it is difficult to say what it is; for we have seen that it has been understood in two different manners. If we adopt its most received definition, we must call it “a pure potency” and “a first potency.” According to this definition, the first matter is a non-entity, as we have already remarked, and has no part in the constitution of substance, any more than a corpse in the constitution of man; for, as the body of man is not a living corpse, so the matter in material substance is not a pure potency in act, both expressions implying a like contradiction. Hence the first matter, according to this definition, is not a metaphysical being, but a mere being of reason—that is, a conception of nothingness as resulting from the suppression of the formal principle of being.
From our notion of simple elements we can form a very clear image of this being of reason. In a primitive element the matter borrows all its reality from the substantial form of which it is the intrinsic term—that is, from a virtual sphericity of which it is the centre. To change such a centre into a pure potency of being, we have merely to suppress the virtual sphericity; for, by so doing, what was a real centre of power becomes an imaginary centre, a term deprived of its reality, a mere nothing; which however, from the nature of the process by which it is reached, is still conceived as the vestige of the real centre of power, and, so to say, the shadow of the real matter which disappears. Thus the materia prima, as a pure potency, is nothing else than an imaginary point in space, or the potency of a real centre of power. This clear and definite conception of the first matter is calculated to shed some additional light on many questions connected with the peripatetic philosophy, and, above all, on the very definition of matter. The old metaphysicians, when defining the first matter to be “a pure potency,” had no notion of the existence of simple elements, and knew very little about the law of material actions; and for this reason they could say nothing about the special character of such a pure potency. For the same reason they were unable also to point out the special nature of the first act of matter; they simply recognized that the conspiration of such a potency with such an act ought to give rise to a “movable being.” But potency and act are to be found not only in material, but also in spiritual, substances; and as these substances are of a quite different nature, it is evident that their respective potencies and their respective acts must be of a quite different nature. Now, the special character of the potency of material substance consists in its being a local term, whilst the special character of the potency of spiritual substance consists in its being an intellectual term. And therefore, to distinguish the former from the latter, we should say that the matter is “a potential term in space” and the first matter “a potency of being in space.” The additional words “in space” point out the characteristic attribute of the material potency as distinguished from all other potencies.